Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - September 7

Elon Musk confirms disruption of Ukrainian drone attack on Russian fleet in Crimea and claims necessity for truce: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/09/8/7418936/

Ukraine says Russian naval vessels badly damaged in Crimea attack

Ukraine said it seriously damaged two Russian naval vessels and struck port infrastructure in the Crimean city of Sevastopol early on Wednesday, in what appeared to be the biggest attack of the war on the home of the Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet.

The strike on Crimea, seized and annexed by Russia in 2014, was confirmed by Moscow. It highlighted Kyiv's growing missile capabilities as Russia continues to bombard Ukraine from afar with long-range missiles and assault drones.

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Russia's defence ministry said that Ukraine attacked a Black Sea naval shipyard with 10 cruise missiles and three uncrewed speedboats in the early hours, damaging two military vessels that had been undergoing repairs.

It said it downed seven of the incoming missiles and that the attack boats had been destroyed by a Russian patrol ship. It later said its two vessels would be fully repaired and return to service, contradicting Kyiv's account.

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It was not clear what kind of missile was used by Kyiv in the attack on Sevastopol, which lies about 300 km (185 miles) from Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa.

Ryzhenko said Ukraine may have used domestically made Neptune anti-ship missiles that had been modified to work against ground targets. British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles were another possibility, he said.

Britain's Sky News cited unnamed sources saying Storm Shadows were used in the attack.

Head-first into the future: Inside the race to win the drone war in Ukraine (Kyiv Independent)

At this stage of a war that could last years more, both sides are getting serious with their drone game: ramping up production while always looking to come up with new innovations that could prove a game-changer on the battlefield.

Over August and September, the Kyiv Independent got an inside look at the Ukrainian effort, both on the battlefield with Adam Group, and with some of Ukraine’s top drone makers in the rear.

The picture that emerges is one of a thick patchwork of passionate grassroots organization, adapting and innovating at a breakneck speed, and shipping off their products straight to the units that need them.

Warning signs also abound. With plenty on their plate already, the Ukrainian military and state defense industry has, according to interviewees from the battlefield to the workshops, failed to do enough to support the home-grown drone industry.

Instead, the onus falls largely on volunteers and private enterprise, who, without the resources and coordination that state backing provides, face an uphill struggle to match Russia’s centralized military machine.

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There is no computer assistance or fancy guidance tech at work here: just the muscle memory of the pilot, using a makeshift drone, dropping a makeshift munition with a makeshift release system.

“This is a children's toy that has been repurposed for use,” 52-year-old Adam Group drone technician Vitalii “Spaniard” told the Kyiv Independent at the team’s base further to the rear.

“They need not only technical support, you have to order somewhere, buying it takes a lot of time, and you also need to train the pilots. These are far from being standardized weapons.”

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In an assuming empty office building in an undisclosed Ukrainian city, two young men work silently under the watchful eye of an older supervisor, as a squad of 3D printers labor away in the background.

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This facility is operated by Defender Army, an organization which brings together some of Ukraine’s top UAV producers under one roof, coordinating and certifying their production, and facilitating the drones’ delivery straight to front-line units.

Independently of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, the private manufacturers’ products are purchased directly both by grassroots volunteer fundraising drives connected to units like Adam, or by larger-scale campaigns like Angry Birds.

According to Defender Army co-founder Denys Liubchenko, 29, the organization now oversees a potential production capacity of over 5,000 FPV drones per month.

Though the vast majority of their parts are manufactured in China, the team has made an effort to build reliable supply chains that go through third countries to reduce its vulnerability to potential future restrictions placed by Beijing.

As they scale up, Defender Army’s manufacturers also look to improve their product based on feedback from the battlefield.

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Echoing the opinions of many in the industry, Liubchenko resents the failure of the Ukrainian state to get involved in the domestic drone industry at the scale required, especially after Russia’s war had already started in 2014.

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In the absence of help from the government, Defender Army’s manufacturers have pushed ahead on their own with new drone designs, including fixed-wing unmanned aircraft with an operational range of up to 1,500 kilometers.

Beyond the war, Liubchenko and his manufacturers have big dreams: to make Ukraine, with all its field experience, a future giant in the export industry for military drones. Without saying on record which countries they were, he confirmed to have already been approached by several buyers.

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Orlan, Zala, Supercam: these names of Russian fixed-wing reconnaissance drones command respect, if not fear, from many Ukrainian soldiers in this area. For anyone spotted out in the open, the chance of incoming artillery far quickly following is high.

These now-household names lay bare the deficiencies in Ukraine’s own approach to the drone war: the lack of effective, standardized models mass-produced by the state on an industrial scale.

Perhaps the most notorious example is that of the Lancet, a homegrown kamikaze drone which has proved highly effective against Ukrainian artillery pieces, air defense systems, and other targets further back from the front line.

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“It is a household appliance and it works like one,” said Vitalii back at the base that evening.

“Their success rate can be somewhere around 10-15% in the best-case scenario. The cool videos posted online are obviously more the exception than the rule.”

Quadcopters and small wooden fixed-wing UAV models dorn the walls of Vitalii’s room, where he tinkers with both the drones received from volunteers and with his own designs.

In an ideal world, Vitalii would like to switch his drones’ communications systems to digital rather than analogue signals. Though there can be a higher risk of losing digitally connected drones, their encrypted signal is much harder to block and track by enemy electronic warfare.

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The Defense Ministry is not without its success stories; the Leleka-100 reconnaissance drone, also locally-produced, was first tested in 2017 and entered into service in 2021. With over 300 in service before the full-scale invasion, the Leleka is widely used across the front line.

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Meanwhile, Russian media announced in July that Moscow would triple production of Lancet drones, showing footage of newly built facilities. According to an August article by the Washington Post, Moscow is also looking to produce 6,000 homemade versions of the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, with which Russia attacks Ukraine on an almost-daily basis.

“It's important to understand that our enemy does not only have terrorist intentions,” said Liubchenko. “It also has impressive industrial capacity, thanks to which it can produce in large amounts, it doesn't face issues with parts because it has China and North Korea in its corner.”